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Just a quick note to let you all know that in a few weeks on May 1st to be exact the BCGA will be requesting the volunteers who hid the 2008 BC Parks Georush caches to remove and archive them. We are doing this so as to be in compliance with the BC Parks guideline of a three year limit on geocaches.

Do not worry there is a new program in the works to put out 100 new caches in BC Parks sometime this spring. The BCGA would like to remind our members that we will be doing our part to keep in compliance with the various guidelines that are in place with the many different parks and cities within our province and hope that our members will do the same.

There are many caches out there that are older than 3 years now and there have been no requests from BC Parks that we have seen. Have we asked them if this is what they want us to do.....

We do not need to ask as it has been set as a policy we must follow. If you are referring to individual member caches in BC Parks that are 3 years and older then it is up to the individual member to comply with the policy.

The BCGA will surely be doing it's part to comply with any policies and procedure that have been put in place and as such will be removing the Geocaches we have placed 3 years ago in BC Parks.

I have a geocache placed near the Fintry Falls stairs. The original placement was August 6, 2007. In 2009, the original container went missing possibly due to water runoff. The area it was placed at was no longer suitable for the cache container. I moved the cache to a new location (about 140 feet/42 meters away from the original location).

My question is, does moving the container a distance away to a new location on a different trail reset the permanence rule, making the removal date date March 2012, or should I remove this cache now based on the original placement date?

I have consulted our policy, and can confirm that moving the item will “reset” the date, so the removal date will now be March 2012. BC Parks appreciates your taking the time to ensure you are following our policy.

You also ask about the difference between a park and a protected area. Protected area is the term that is used for any protected land. Park is a specific designation. Parks can be either class A, class B, or class C. In addition to parks, BC Parks also protects Conservancies, Recreation Areas, Ecological Reserves, and other land designations (ie, Conservation lands, Wildlife Management Areas or other).

Descriptions about what each of these designation means are found on our website here:

I understand the concept and in fact I was the person who coordinated the cache placements province wide while on the Executive, but I think we should ask the right questions anyway. BCGA may have paid for and coordinated the caches, but individual caches do not belong to the BCGA. Individual cache owners both own and maintain them. Surely, BCGA will request cache owners follow the guidelines, but as Lord Ed notes, moving them may be one of the options.

Yes they are individually owned however they were apart of a project the BCGA made happen. This in my opinion makes it the responsibility of the BCGA as well as the individual cache owners to have them either removed or the new option of relocating them.

I feel uneasy about asking BC Parks to many questions as it might appear as though we are not willing to abide by the guidelines that have been put in place.

Being the coordinator that year your the perfect person to ask these questions to then:

What expected outcomes were relayed to the cache hiders at the time once the caches became 3 years old?

Were the hiders made aware that the caches were to be removed after 3 years?

Obviously they were not aware of the possibility of relocation at the time as this option is not in the guidelines. If there were expected outcomes put in place back in 2008 then there should be no questions needing to be asked from the BCGA to BC Parks. Each individual cache owner would already know what was being expected from them after the 3 years were up.

I'm asking these questions as I have gone over the list of hiders and we seem to be having quite a bit of trouble contacting a majority of the cache owners, If unable to contact them we will have no choice but to make the decision ourselves as to whether to request someone in the area help us with either removing or relocating these 2008 caches.

My memory may not be perfect but I'm quite sure the BC Parks geocaching policy was announced a few weeks before geocachers across the province were asked to hide caches for the Geo Rush project. So, geocachers would have known all about the three year limitation. I am also quite sure the BCGA either send notification to the volunteers or at least asked them to read the policy before placing a BC Parks cache.

Yes, geocaching.com's rules dictate that geocaches are the responsibility of the owner but the BCGA was definitely the coordinator in that project -- the middleman between the property owner and the volunteers who placed the caches. In that respect, the land owner will be looking to the BCGA to take part in making sure the policy is enforced.

The one way the BCGA convinced BC parks to allow geocaching on their property is the mere fact that we stressed that geocaches are NOT GARBAGE and we as geocachers do clean up after ourselves.

We can look at this as a test period. BC Parks allowed open access to geocachers in their parks as long as we kept to the guidelines. People who do not adhere to the guidelines will not kill the relationship between the BCGA and BC Parks but the volunteers who do not adhere to the guidelines will definitely leave a black mark that may influence the overall relationship between BC Parks and geocaching in general. The more volunteers who do not clean up their caches, the more BC Parks will think about re-evaluating their policy.

If there is one problem with the volunteer model, the BCGA didn't talk to geocaching.com enough on the topic. With geocaching.com's help the caches could have been all archived after three years regardless. And then it may have been up to the BCGA to collect all containers. I don't know if there is a perfect solution but it may be something to think about. The BCGA relies on volunteers. It doesn't have the manpower or resources to do everything itself.

Perhaps we could ask any cacher that finds a Georush Cache after May 30th to take the cache with them and use the container for themselves just as long as it is not within 160 meters of the spot they found it. The caches would be cleaned up and eventually archived that way. OK, that may cause some friction but at least the job would be done. One of the most important things for BC Parks is NOT to have garbage left behind.

One option is to simply place a 'needs maintenance' (with link to the BC parks guidelines and suggestion to re-locate to allow the area to recover) on a cache in BC parks that is out of compliance. If its not fixed up, then it can be sent to the reviewer for archiving.

Hmmmm, I wonder whom one could speak with about a variance from the 3 year pemanence rule? Hides in BC Parks in the north (as an example) get found way less frequently than in areas closer to urban centers. Surely there must be a rationale for considering not archiving such caches?

There are a lot of caches that do not get found much for various reasons, weather, terrain, etc. However BC Parks has made it a policy and the BCGA has agreed to work with BC Parks to place caches that adhere to said policy. The volunteer cache owners (myself included) have been asked to remove their caches just before the 3 year deadline. I understood when I hid those caches that they would be removed in 3 years.
They may move them to another spot in the park if they so wish as the cache container does belong to them.
This allows the cache area to recover if there is damage as well as new hiding spots bring visitors to another interesting area.

On a side note I am going through all my hides and will be removing all my hides in BC Parks that are over the 3 year limit. It is time and frees up the area for others.

All good feedback, but let me add that not all geocaches are equal. Some are roadside caches and some are at the end of a 3 hour hike and only see 3-4 cachers a year. Some BC Parks are near urban centers and some are a long ways out there. When we were asked to expand our caches to promote BC Parks, some of these caches took a 2 hour drive and a 2 hour hike one way. BC Parks asked us to do this to promote the parks. It will take 10 years to get some traffic to these locations. For the caches I have placed it will take several days to move or withdraw them. On top of that, for the more remote locations, I will think twice about placing a new cache if I have to pull it out after only a few cachers have seen it. This is a big province and caches in Goldstream Park are much different from Arrowstone Park or on top of a mountain in Wells Gray.

All good feedback, but let me add that not all geocaches are equal. Some are roadside caches and some are at the end of a 3 hour hike and only see 3-4 cachers a year. Some BC Parks are near urban centers and some are a long ways out there. When we were asked to expand our caches to promote BC Parks, some of these caches took a 2 hour drive and a 2 hour hike one way. BC Parks asked us to do this to promote the parks. It will take 10 years to get some traffic to these locations. For the caches I have placed it will take several days to move or withdraw them. On top of that, for the more remote locations, I will think twice about placing a new cache if I have to pull it out after only a few cachers have seen it. This is a big province and caches in Goldstream Park are much different from Arrowstone Park or on top of a mountain in Wells Gray.

If this is the case with remote cache hides then I'm sure something might/could be worked out with BC Parks due to the special circumstances. I believe the policy is definitely directed more towards the common caches that see heavy foot traffic in the easily accessible locations. If you have some of your caches in remote locations I would suggest contacting them with Lorded's contact info to discuss the matter.

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